Devices for local administration of drug to the bladder are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,679,094 describes intravesical devices for drug delivery that can be inserted into, and effectively and tolerably retained in, the urinary bladder of a patient for controlled release of drug over an extended period. It would be desirable, however, to provide alternative drug delivery device designs, for example to provide suitable release kinetics for different kinds of drugs.
In addition, it would be desirable to provide alternative designs to conventional drug delivery systems to reduce or eliminate potential problems, such as dose dumping, wasting of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), or other issues that may be associated with the extended, continuous delivery of high potency drugs from devices inserted or implanted into the body of a patient. In particular, it would be desirable to provide a device or system that is relatively easy to manufacture/assemble, and which does not negatively impact the release kinetics of the drug.
Lastly, it would be desirable, in some cases, to provide an elastic intravesical drug delivery device that is capable of maintaining a bladder retention shape without the use of a retention frame element to impart the shape bias characteristics of the device.